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Monday, January 30, 2017

At 18 weeks of age, little James was nestled warmly in his momma’s womb. He was about the size of a bell pepper; roughly 5 ½ inches long, and growing more every day. There wasn’t anything James enjoyed more than his momma’s voice, and sometimes, almost as a reply, he would give a firm kick back. He hadn’t been held in her arms yet, but he felt secure and loved.

James wasn’t the only one excited; his mom, April, was over the moon to have him on the way. After marrying the love of her life, she couldn’t wait to see their little family start growing. A few years after they were married, April’s dream to become a momma was confirmed with a visit to the doctor’s office. Her life was full of smiles; she could tell exciting things were ahead.

Fast forward a few months. April and her husband found themselves at a specialist, being told something they didn’t want to hear; their little boy had lethal skeletal dysplasia. In his specific case, James had such a narrow rib cage that his lungs wouldn’t be able to develop correctly. This did not affect him in the womb at all, but when he was born, he would have to be put on a ventilator.

Little James felt shaky; his mom was crying many tears. He had no way of knowing that the doctor had recommended his death. April was referred to Planned Parenthood. Within three weeks of his happy 18 week birthday, James started feeling something painful; something was tugging his foot. An abortion specialist was at work; if the doctor was successful, James’ heart would not be beating in less than an hour.

April walked out of the clinic that day assuring herself with the thought “I can’t imagine having given birth and watching my son suffer. I can’t imagine holding him and watching him take his last breath, and knowing that that would be painful for him.”

James did suffer, despite his mother’s hope to spare him. And he did take his last breath painfully, as his tiny body was yanked from her uterus. April may have had the best intentions for her son, but sadly she was deceived by her doctor and Planned Parenthood that her son would have had such a rough life that a quick abortion would be a much better alternative.

This baby boy’s birthday is never celebrated. His death is not one people care about; whenever he comes to his mom’s mind, she reminds herself that she was merciful to him by choosing to end his life. This little one isn’t just an illustration - this baby boy lived twenty-one short weeks before he was murdered.

He was not loved after his diagnosis; he was not wanted after doctors found him to be ”less than perfect.” And he was not named - after all, he was just a fetus. Nothing more than a clump of cells, according to Planned Parenthood.

So I have given him a name today; I have stopped to grieve for him.

Created, not an accident

Did you know that if I had been aborted, you most likely wouldn’t even notice? Have you ever thought about the fact that when you go to the grocery store, there should be more people shopping with you? Our schools have absent students who are not accounted for; churches have empty seats that should be filled with missing people. There’s a pair of shoes for sale at Target right now that would have been sold, but their potential owner hasn’t been seen. There are babies in Rwanda waiting to be adopted, but the young lady God intended to use to rescue from their dangerous circumstances wasn’t ever granted a birth certificate, let alone a visa. Scientists talk about the need to find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease, but the individual with the mind to understand an unexplored avenue of neuroscience is missing in action.

Who are all these people, you ask? These are the faces of the fifty-eight million babies murdered in abortion. That’s more lives than the total number of people living in Myanmar!

It is estimated that at a certain abortion clinic in Grand Rapids, near where I live, in forty days 256 lives are taken. If 256 people were killed in your city, the news would be exploding with headlines like “Mass Murder in St. Louis Leaves Town Devastated” or “FBI Investigation of Recent Chicago Killings.”

But no. The media says next to nothing about these brutally murdered kids. The government calls this “a personal choice.” If your sister was killed tomorrow, would you call that the killer’s personal choice? “Well, I mean, if he really thinks my sister would be better off dead, then, yeah, he’s probably right!” I don’t think so.

58 million lives have been taken, but something else has also been lost too. 58 million mothers have been deprived of the beautiful little one God intended for them to have. 58 million dads will never hold their aborted son or daughter in their arms. Countless siblings will never even know the name of a killed baby sister or brother.

Once a lady from church came up to my mom while she was expecting my triplet siblings and asked her, “Wouldn’t it just be easier if you lost one of your babies?” My mom was shocked! She already knew these three little babies so well even though they hadn’t even been born yet, and although she knew it was going to be hard to go from having 1 child (me) to having 4 kiddos, she loved each of us. She was going to do everything she could to protect her little ones.

My mom was asked that question nearly fourteen years ago, and I highly doubt that lady would ask such a question if she could have looked each of my three siblings in the eyes and seen how each of them are made in God’s image and have an important place in the body of Christ.

Often, those of us who have been attending church for all our lives think we’re doing fine as long as we mentally agree that abortion is wrong, but I completely disagree. As A.W. Tozer has said, “You have not done anything about truth until you have acted on it.”

Why are you pro-life? It shouldn’t be simply because your pastor said he’s pro-life or because it seems like the more moral choice; we are standing for life because this is on our Jesus’s heart. He has called us to be a voice for the voiceless. Check out what His Word has to say:

“Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy” (Psalm 82:3 KJV).

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27 ESV).

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling” (Psalm 68:5 NIV).

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday” (Isaiah 58:6-10 ESV).

“‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me’” (Matthew 25:45b ESV).

Standing for life on a day to day basis

How can we practically be speaking out on behalf of these little ones and help save these lives?

Volunteer at a Christian crisis pregnancy center

One way you can be a voice to these little ones is by volunteering at a local Christian crisis pregnancy center. Often there are opportunities at these centers that can involve any age. For example, you might be able to sort baby clothes, help with cleaning and organizational projects, shovel the center’s driveway, take a shift as a receptionist, or help counsel women. Try searching Google for a center near you.

Be willing to speak

Don’t be afraid to boldly & graciously speak up. You can use social media, art, writing, and so much more to speak out. When your friends, family, or even random strangers start talking about abortion, ask them some thought provoking questions. For example:

Do you believe that life starts at conception?

Did you know that babies can feel pain starting as early as 8 weeks along?

Have you ever wondered why our country punishes violations of the fetal homicide law, but doesn’t seem too worried about abortion?

Can I tell you a story about ____[name of abortion survivor, etc]?

Did you know that God designed every strand of DNA in your body? It’s so cool! And your entire genetic makeup is complete at conception!

Did you know that the reason I’m pro-life is simply because God is the giver of life?

Make a donation

You can financially support a number of organizations that keep Jesus Christ at the center of their pro-life ministry. By giving financial resources, you can help an organization to reach even further in their ministry to at-risk moms & families. Check out: Life Matters World Wide, The Drop Box, and Alpha Family Center.

Watch an edifying pro-life movie with some friends

Having a few friends over and turning on an edifying movie can be a great way to influence friends, and it can also strike up some great conversations! I have been personally convicted and encouraged by:

Amazing Grace - The story of William Wilberforce who fought for the end of slavery in England

The Dropbox - A documentary style film about a pastor from South Korea who installed a large drop box in the front of his house where moms could bring their babies if they did not feel able to raise them.

The Hiding Place - The movie made from Corrie ten Boom’s autobiography about rescuing Jews from the Natzi’s.

This is in no way meant to be an exhaustive list of ways to stand for life; these are just a few ways you could get started.

As we each live our daily lives, may we never forget “James” and the countless other lives which have been brutally taken for gain. Planned Parenthood has an agenda; their goal is to have every high school girl coming through their doors for 3-5 abortions before they get their diplomas. [1] Let’s see to it that each of us personally reaches out to the single moms and young pregnant girls in our lives in Christ’s love. Be willing to speak the truth in love, and find practical ways you can serve them.

We will each answer to God for how we are responding to our death culture. Are we obeying His leading and standing in the gap for these children and vulnerable mothers?

Saturday, January 7, 2017

I definitely do not consider myself an expert on feminism in the least, and I do not wish to be. And I am certain that my other article - Feminism: Friend or Foe - reflected that. Many of my examples and stories came from personal observations and conversations with my feminist friends. The example of Kyle was intended to be a depiction of many different facets of feminism. There are most definitely feminists that do believe that women are more evolved than men (like this example: http://people.com/movies/ryan-gosling-says-women-are-better-than-men-wants-female-president/) [of course, I believe that God is the creator, and therefore do not agree with evolution at all, but this is an important point to many feminists, so I included it]. And according to the modern view of feminism, holding doors for anyone breaks the sense of equality they seek to develop (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/11063234/Why-I-no-longer-hold-doors-open-for-women.html). So technically, if you think it’s a good idea for men to hold doors open for women (I definitely think it’s a good idea!) then you cannot also fully agree with feminism - the idea that seeks equality in absolutely everything, even in door holding (which should apparently, according to the feministic viewpoint, would always and only be for yourself).

I honestly didn’t know that it’s full equality that feminists seek until I received a message from a reader. And I don’t believe that Christian men (or women for that matter) seeking to follow Jesus can be feminists because, if a man is living out the pattern of masculinity that God has set for him (to be the protector and leader [see Gen. 3:16 - notice that God says “And he {Adam} shall rule over you {Eve}”, and see Eph. 5:24-25] ; and the first one to lay their life down [check out: Eph. 5:25-29]), then it’s not equality - someone else is being put before yourself.

If the church ultimately accepted the notion of feminism, it would be like throwing a grenade at ourselves - it would be like saying “Hey Enemy! Come over here and tell us what you think gender should look like!” Ultimately, after a fair bit of research this weekend, I have come to understand feminism as the view “I’ll treat you as well as you treat me!” (That is equality). Would you say that Jesus was a promoter of equality? Jesus was the servant of all - maybe one way to put it could be “the ultimate door holder” - He, more than anyone else, deserved special treatment. If I may steal a quote from an anonymous author: “Wouldst thou be a chief? Then lowly serve. Wouldst thou go up? Then go down. But go as low as you will and the Highest [Jesus] has been lower still” (emphasis added). We, as believers, are meant to be Jesus to those around us (Him living in us, and emptying us more and more of ourselves, and filling us more and more with Himself).

He didn’t get treated with equality. And I have no doubt in my mind that if our Jesus had wanted equality (in the sense of “I’ll treat you as well as you treat me”) then the entire human race would have been abruptly eliminated from the face of the earth the very day Adam and Eve sinned. God deserved our total worship, admiration, and praise, and yet when Eve sought equality with God and disregarded Him completely, it eventually ended in the reverse effect - God coming down to earth, the beautiful servant of all, who washed His disciples’ feet (His students, whom He knew would forsake Him later), healed lepers, forgave the prostitute, healed blind beggars, and let the little children come unto Him - and ultimately took our sin and bore it on the Cross. That’s some major inequality.

If our lives are going to be aligned with His, then equality gets thrown out the window, and we each must view one another as better than ourselves and seek to serve one another - no matter if the other person will serve us in return or not. If we’re totally obsessed with Jesus Christ, then our view of feminism will be radically different from the culture’s. Feminism should seem a far off notion to the Christian because, feminism is built upon the foundation of “my rights, my way, my interpretation.” This idea, as Kristen Clark has said, is woven with the same sin Satan committed in the beginning. A person whose life is built upon Jesus Christ has lost sight of oneself - one’s rights,one’s way, their interpretation - are all swallowed up in passionate pursuit of Jesus. If my life is all about Him, then I have no theme of my own - whatever He’s proclaiming is what I’m proclaiming too!

Do you believe that Jesus Christ proclaimed feminism (AKA equality)? Let’s see what His Word says:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11 ESV, emphasis added).

I’m no theologian, but I say that it was zero percent fair for Him to die for us. Jesus taking the blow for our sin = equality??? Jesus taking on the punishment I fully deserve, and making me a co-heir with Himself = totally fair? I don’t know about you, but if I took someone else’s punishment, and then shared my inheritance with them, I probably wouldn’t have felt like we had both gotten what we deserved. Jesus deserved adoration, we gave Him scorn. We absolutely and fully deserved hell because we broke His law, but He took our punishment so that we could have a chance to know Him. There’s something massively unfair and unequal about that. He gets the worse end of the deal, we get to be His children, if we will accept Him as our Lord.

What should make us uncomfortable about the “Kyle” example in my other post, is that, on almost every point, he’s nothing like Jesus!

One reader of my other feminism article said: “If feminism really did believe that men were dumb and nuisances, while women were to be exalted above others, I agree that such a philosophy would stand in opposition to the Bible. If we go with the definition that a feminist believes in the social, political, and economical equality of the sexes, then I actually believe that the Bible supports feminism and gender equality.”

The problem I have with gender equality is the simple fact that God did not create equal sexes. The definition of “equal” reveals some important thoughts:

Equal - Uniform in application or effect; without discrimination on any grounds.

I believe wholeheartedly that God values men and women the same amount - I do not believe for a moment that God has a “favorite gender.” A favorite Scripture of Christian feminists is Galatians 3:28. It says:

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (emph. added).

If we dissect this a bit, we find that when His Word tells us that we “are all one in Christ Jesus”, the idea is not that we have no distinction between each other, but that there is unity. The Greek word there for “one” is, “εἷς, μία, ἕν” or transliterated: heis. It is also commonly translated as - alike, agreement, common, individual, individuality, unity - we are the church, His bride. And oh what a day it will be when the men and women of our generation choose to stop chasing the agendas of this world - be that feminism, self-glorification, personal success, or whatever - and walk out into the open carrying absolutely nothing but the Cross! Self completely crucified, and Jesus Christ magnified and exalted. Then and only then will we be able to have the kind of unity described here in Galatians.

This is the kind of unity that is made up of men and women laboring together for the honor of their king - in the roles God has created for them. And He has given us all the information we need in His Word about what it means to be a man or woman of God. Feminism is crafted by the whims of the culture, Christ-centered masculinity and femininity were intricately designed by our God.

It is no cultural mistake that the woman has been called “the weaker vessel” (see 1 Peter 3:7). Ladies, this is the legitimate truth, and we should be excited about it! We are a picture of Christ’s bride, and if we believe that God is all-powerful, then we must agree that His bride is not all-powerful; she is dependant upon Her heavenly Bridegroom to provide for her every need - He is her strength, her joy, her peace, her endurance, and her everything. Other than Jesus Christ, there is no such man in this wide world. We, as Jesus-centered women are created for Jesus - to know Him and to make Him known. Such is the purpose of masculinity as well - that Jesus Christ would be Lord over their lives and their closest heart friend. And each man was created to be a picture of Jesus. This is why we see the man’s role as provider and initiator; it’s who our Jesus is, and the reflection He desires to see in the lives of the men around us. Ephesians 5:23 has such a great picture of this: "For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.”

The reader continues, “In the series ‘Romans For You’ by Tim Keller… He outlines how Paul’s discussion of adoption was actually radically different than the cultural ideas of adoption at the time. In Roman culture, women were not considered valid for adoption, since adoption was seen only as a means to distribute an inheritance. Since only males could receive an inheritance, only males were considered eligible for adoption. Paul challenges this by saying that God adopts His children as sons AND daughters, going against the culture of the time and promoting women to a position of equal opportunity with men. Reasons like this are why I support gender equality from a Christian worldview.”

My response to this is, as I previously stated, God loves men and women equally, but He has different roles for them. I agree completely that God adopts His children as sons and daughters, but Paul’s intention was not to exalt women! Paul knew his position - In Christ! And the only one to be exalted as we stand in Christ is, of course, Christ! God has made us as women to be bearers of life and nurturers of relationships, but our ultimate purpose is to glorify His name! He uses the roles He has designed us for - bearers and nurturers - in many different settings, according to His will for our lives. Even if you and I never become moms biologically, we are meant to be bearers of new life - meaning that we bring the Gospel with us everywhere we go, and disciple the women God brings into our lives, as He sees fit.

No matter how your life looks twenty years from now, His will is for you to follow Him in obedience in every area of your life. His Word is very clear about the roles and design for womanhood and manhood; this is serious stuff, unlike what our culture is telling us! It is not our job to “match” the men. There is no place in all of Scripture where we are told to pursue equality; as a matter of fact, we are commanded in His Word to have this attitude about our rights:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7a).

We are commanded to be servants; not “personal rights activists.” May our womanhood ever be marked by servant-hood, and a full abandonment to Jesus Christ - in the way we view and exercise our role and in the way we understand the man’s role - and in every other place in our lives.

I have found that if our culture is promoting something, I must not look at it from their point of view, ever. I have to see everything through the lens of God’s Word. As we navigate through current issues - feminism and beyond - we must know His Word! Or we will become the women as described in second Timothy: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Tim. 3:1-7 NASB, emph. added).

Our God is fully aware of the state of our world and the strong pull of feminism. And He is not applauding it! He knows that feminism will one day fall, and all shall be as He intended.

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5 NIV).

A final thought for the person who has come to the end of this article and is still a feminist: do you think we will be feminists in heaven? Focused on gaining equality between men and women? If you know God’s Word, you’ve probably caught onto something - Scripture and all of life is about Him! Not us, but Him! And when we are all in eternity together our focus will be perfectly set upon Him, and there will be no temptation to look anywhere else.

HELLO

My name is Cassidy Shooltz, thanks so much for stopping by! It is with immense joy that I can say "I belong to Jesus!" He has been completely faithful to me, and it is my prayer that each passing hour will be the avenue for knowing Him better. For many years C.T. Studd's words have rung loudly in my ears: "Only one life t'will soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last, and when I'm dying, how happy I'll be, if the lamp of my life was burned out for Thee." It is my hope that everything here on Let My Life Be a Light will lift your eyes to Jesus! :)

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"The fair, new petals must fall and for no visible reason; no one seems enriched by the stripping. And the first step into the realm of giving is a like surrender. Not man-ward but God-ward; an utter yielding of our best. So long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped its true meaning. That is not worthy of the name, for no polluted thing can be offered."

~Lillias Trotter

"There is absolutely no excuse to stay where you are right now. If you are weak, He can make you strong. If you are timid, He can make you brave. If you are a pervert, he can make you pure. If you are selfish, He can make you selfless. If you are a shepherd, He can make you a king. If you are mediocre, He can make you a Mighty One of valor.... Jesus defeated every spiritual foe you and I will ever face before we ever even encounter them." Eric Ludy, Wrestling Prayer

"Purify the inmost desire of my heart." Amy Carmichael

"Lord, identify me with your death, until I know sin is dead in me." Oswald Chambers

"Until He is our all and all, we aren't truly living the Gospel life." Leslie Ludy

"Sanctification is impartation, not imitation." Oswald Chambers

"Your priorities must be God first, God second, God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever." Oswald Chambers